Principal Investigator(s):
Sandra L. Hofferth, University of Michigan. Survey Research Center;
Frank P. Stafford, University of Michigan. Survey Research Center;
Wei-Jun J. Yeung, University of Michigan. Survey Research Center;
Greg J. Duncan, University of Michigan. Survey Research Center;
Martha S. Hill, University of Michigan. Survey Research Center;
James Lepkowski, University of Michigan. Survey Research Center;
James N. Morgan, University of Michigan. Survey Research Center

Summary

The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is an ongoing
data collection effort begun in 1968 in an attempt to fill the need
for a better understanding of the determinants of family income and
its changes. The PSID has continued to trace individuals from the
original national sample of approximately 4,800 households, whether
those individuals are living in the same dwelling or with the same
people. The investigators hoped to discover whether most short-term
changes in economic status are due to forces outside the family or if
they can be traced to something in the individual's own background or
in the pattern of his or her thinking and behavior. The data can shed
light on what causes family income to rise above or fall below the
poverty line. In line with the theoretical model, the questions asked
fall generally under the headings of economic status, economic
behavior, demographics, and attitudes. Specifically, they deal with
topics such as employment, income sources and amounts, housing, car
ownership, food expenditures, transportation, do-it-yourself home
maintenance and car repairs, education, disability, time use, family
background, family composition changes, and residential location. In
the early years, respondents were asked supplemental questions about
their housing and neighborhood characteristics, child care,
achievement motivation, job training, and retirement plans. In more
recent years, special topics have included extensive supplements on
education, military combat experience, health, kinship networks, and
wealth. Supplemental datasets, each with detailed information about a
particular topic collected over the years, are released separately
from the core files (PANEL STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS, 1968-1999: ANNUAL
CORE DATA [ICPSR 7439]). Supplemental information on additional topics,
such as flows of time and money, help among families and their
friends, and motivation and efficacy, is gathered on an intermittent
basis. Part 1, the 1985 Ego-Alter File, presents information on
retrospective histories of marriage, childbirth, adoption, and
substitute parenting. Part 2, the 1984-1987 Work History Supplement
File, contains more detailed information on individual employment
histories than is presented in the core files, including multiple job
changes. Part 3, the Validation Study, was designed to assess the
quality of cross-sectional and over-time economic data obtained in the
PSID. The first wave of the Validation Study was conducted in 1983 and
a second wave was conducted in 1987. For the Validation Study, the
standard PSID questionnaire was administered to a sample drawn from a
single large manufacturing firm. Questionnaire results were compared
to company records to verify respondents' answers to questions such as
hours worked, sick time taken, periods of unemployment, and changes of
position within the company. Part 4, the Time and Money Transfers
Supplement File, 1988, was designed to facilitate access to the
detailed information collected in the 1988 wave of the PSID regarding
transfers, in the form of time and money, between a PSID family unit
and other persons during the 1987 calendar year. Part 5, the Marriage
History File, 1985-1999 (Waves 18-31), was designed to facilitate
access to detailed information collected in the 1985 through 1999
waves of the PSID regarding retrospective marriage histories. This
file contains detailed information about marriages of people of
marriage-eligible ages living in a PSID family at the time of the
interview in any wave between 1985 and 1999. Each record contains all
past-year and most-recent-year details about the timing and
circumstances of a marriage for a specified individual. Variables in
this file include the identifiers for each individual and his/her
spouse, month and year of marriage/divorce/widowhood, order of the
specific marriage, total number of marriages, and the most recent year
wave when data were collected. Part 6, Relationship History File,
1968-1985 (Waves 1-18), presents information on pairs of individuals
who were members of family units descended from a common, original
family in the 1968 sample. The Relationship History File was designed
to identify relationships that might not be evident using traditional
data collection methods, which often define relationships in terms of
the relationship of the individual to the head of household. There are
two records for each pair (one record per individual). Variables
include relationship, age, gender, and a set of residential status
variables. This file is designed for use with Appendix C for
Relationship History File (Part 7). Part 8, Childbirth and Adoption
History File, 1985-1999 (Waves 18-31), was designed to facilitate
access to detailed information collected in the 1985 through 1999
waves of the PSID regarding retrospective histories of childbirth and
adoption. This file contains detailed information about any individual
living with a PSID family at the time of the interview in any wave
from 1985 through 1999 and his/her biological or adopted
children. Each record contains all present-year and past-year details
about the timing and circumstances of childbirth and adoption for an
individual. Variables in this file include the identifiers for each
parent and child, month and year of birth for both parent and child,
birth order, birth weight and date of death for a child, year of most
recent report, number of births/adoptions, etc. Data in this file are
structured in a one-record-per-event format, with each record
representing a specific childbirth or adoption event. Part 9, the
Self-Administered Questionnaire Supplemental File, 1990 (Wave 23),
provides information about the health care needs of older panel
members in the core (but not Latino) sample. Each household head and
wife aged 50 or older was mailed a self-administered
questionnaire. Questions focused on the respondent's health, health
care coverage, and long-term care coverage. Part 10, Telephone Health
Care Cost Questionnaire Supplemental File, 1990 (Wave 23), was
administered by telephone at the time of the main interview to heads
and wives aged 65 or older. The questions in this supplement focused
on detailed health care costs for eligible heads and wives. Data
include separate cost and payment source information associated with
every hospitalization or nursing home stay during the 12 months prior
to the 1990 interview. Similar cost and payment data about outpatient
surgery, other office visits, oral surgery, prescription medication,
eyeglasses and hearing aids, and professional and nonprofessional home
care were also collected. Some additional questions were included
about help with domestic duties, both paid and unpaid, help with
financial planning, and cash and noncash gifts. Part 11, the Parent
Health Supplement, 1991 (Wave 24), is a subset of the Wave 24 data
that supplies supplemental information concerning the health of the
parents of the household head and wife. Parts 12-14 comprise the
wealth supplemental files for 1984, 1989, and 1994. Part 12, Family
Wealth Supplement Data, 1984 (Wave 17), and Part 13, Family Wealth
Supplement Data, 1989 (Wave 22), were derived, respectively, from the
Public Release II versions (final release versions) of Parts 18 and 19
of ICPSR study 7439, and Part 14, Family Wealth Supplement Data, 1994
(Wave 27), was derived from Part 202, Family File, 1994 (Wave 27), an
early release version. The components of wealth were collected at the
family level. Part 15, Estimating Risk Tolerance from the 1996 PSID,
asked how willing employed respondents were to take jobs with
different income prospects. Parts 16 and 17 focus on active saving and
cover the time periods 1984-1989 and 1989-1994,
respectively. Sequences in these files are intended to measure flows
of money into and out of different assets such as putting money into
or taking it out of the stock market, putting money into annuities or
cashing them in. In combination with changes in the companion wealth
components these measures can be used to study savings versus capital
gains.

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

Distributor(s)

Time Period(s)

1968 -- 1999

Date of Collection

1968 -- 1999

Data Collection Notes

The files in this data collection were originally
included in PANEL STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS (ICPSR 7439), which has
been broken out by ICPSR into three separate data collections: PANEL
STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS, 1968-1999: ANNUAL CORE DATA (ICPSR 7439),
PANEL STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS, 1968-1999: SUPPLEMENTAL FILES (ICPSR
3202), and PANEL STUDY OF INCOME DYNAMICS, 1989-1990: LATINO SAMPLE
(ICPSR 3203).

Users are
encouraged to check the PSID Web site for updates to this
collection. A complete bibliography of publications can also be accessed at the site.

Sample

The sample is a combination of a representative
cross-section of nearly 3,000 families selected from the University of
Michigan Survey Research Center's (SRC's) master sampling frame and a
subsample of about 1,900 low-income families previously interviewed by
the Census Bureau for the Office of Economic Opportunity. The combined
sample is appropriately weighted to be representative of all people in
the United States. Heads of the same families have been interviewed
each year since 1968, as have the heads of families containing members
who were part of a 1968 household and later left to start households
of their own or to join another household. Panel losses have been more
than offset by the addition of these newly formed families, bringing
the present sample size to near 7,000. The sample for Part 3, the
Validation Study, was drawn from a single large manufacturing firm in
the Detroit area.

Time Method

Longitudinal: Panel

Universe

Households that had at least one member of the
noninstitutionalized population of the 48 contiguous states and the
District of Columbia. The portion of the sample called the SRC
subsample, when taken by itself, was representative of the households
in the coterminous United States in 1968. The second subsample
consisted of the low-income nonelderly households sampled by the
Census Bureau for the 1966-1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity. These
households, drawn with unequal probabilities of selection that
depended on geographic location, age, race, and income, were added to
the sample to ensure that there would be a sufficient number of
low-income and, especially, Black low-income households to permit
separate analyses of these populations.

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Original Release Date

2002-09-19

Version Date

2016-09-07

Version History

2016-09-07 The SPSS and SAS setups for DS2: Work History Supplement File, 1984-1987 (Waves 17-20) were replaced, and Stata setup files, as well as SPSS and Stata system files, a SAS transport (CPORT) file, a tab-delimited data file, and an R data file were added to the collection. DS3: Validation Study, 1983 and 1987 (Waves 16 and 20) was reprocessed to eliminate an error in the Stata setups. The SPSS, SAS, and Stata setups, as well as the SPSS and Stata system files and the SAS transport (CPORT) file for this dataset were replaced, and a tab-delimited data file and an R data file were added to the collection.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.